Stadium Club is back!!!

A couple of months ago, an online campaign was started to bring back Topps Stadium Club baseball cards. Stadium Club was the first premium set ever issued by Topps back in 1991. It was known for the great photography on its cards and it remained one of the most popular premium sets throughout the 1990s. Eventually, however, the attention of collectors began to shift towards autographed and game-used cards, and Stadium Club was completely phased out by Topps after 2003. The main reason for the campaign to bring it back was so that Topps could have a set to rival the incredible photography featured in Upper Deck’s flagship set. As I mentioned earlier today, the flagship Upper Deck set (Series 1 and Series 2) is the only Upper Deck set that I’ve liked so far this year, so if Topps can match that set with a revived Stadium Club, then I might be able to forget about Upper Deck completely.

So tonight I unsuspectingly checked my email and found a newsletter from Balenac & Abrams Sports Collectibles, a dealer in Iowa from which I have bought hobby boxes in the past. The email highlighted some upcoming releases, and lo and behold, it mentions 2008 Stadium Club Baseball!

Here are the details from the email (I’m quoting directly from it):

(SRP $25.00) 8bxs/12pks/5crds Orders Due 9/3/08 Release Date 11/3/08

Price: $225 a box

Key Selling Points:

Stadium Club celebrates its return to Major League Baseball in 2008, delivering 12 Autographs and 1 Hobby Exclusive Yankee Stadium Relic Card per box! It also offers 1 Hobby Exclusive Sketch Card and Triple Autographed Card per case! One autographed card per pack!!!

I wasn’t able to find any information on the web about this, but since it’s from a very reputable dealer and the picture of the box looks legit, I think this is the real deal. And I think that Fielder’s Choice is the first blog to report this news.

While it is great to see Stadium Club coming back, it doesn’t look much like the Stadium Club that we remember from the 1990s. $225 per box is pretty steep. But, you do get a whopping 12 autographs per box and 1 per pack, plus a “Yankee Stadium Relic Card” (maybe a piece of the actual stadium?) It actually sounds like a better deal than most of the high-end sets that are out there. Also, since there are only four boxes per case, collectors who buy a box will have a reasonable shot at getting one of the one-per-case cards.

It remains to be seen how many base cards there will be, but apparently they will be thicker than normal cards. And hopefully, the superb photography of past Stadium Club sets will return. We’ll likely find out more as we get closer to the November 3 release date.

I’m pretty excited and I think I’ll buy a box of this. What does everyone else think?